I continue to be surprised by the misreporting in major publications of revenues from GM crops. Based on USDA statistics and average crop prices, the three main GM crops in the U.S. (corn, soy, and cotton) brought in farm scale revenues of $100 billion in 2010. As I noted in 2009 in Nature Biotechnology, many news outlets continue to report the $5.5 billion in revenues from U.S. GM seed sales as total sector revenues.

With U.S. biologics revenues of $75 billion, and industrial biotech revenues of $115 billion, total U.S. 2010 revenues from genetically modified systems were $300 billion, or the equivalent of more than 2% of GDP.

Globally, biotech investment continues to accelerate, as do revenues (see table below). China and India have made domestic biotech a priority for producing jobs and economic growth and as an independent source of fuels, food, and materials. Malaysia has recently reported biotech constituted 2.5% of its 2010 GDP, up from zero in 2005. Pakistan's biotech economy presently consists entirely of GM cotton, which the USDA estimates to now be 100% of the annual drop, and which until 2010 was entirely illegal.